Harlem Nights

YSL M7/Red Tobacco by Mancera crossover. Yes, really! Harlem Nights (HN) is my favorite release by Chris Collins. It starts with a warm, spicy sweetness. Similar to Red Tobacco (RT). Sweeter than RT, with a tonka beans-like sweet woodiness. HN is also less spicy and rounder (as opposed to sharp). This warm, round, sweet spiciness is quite charming! As it dries down, the lightly-woody sweetness turns ambery (rummy), and the spiciness starts to dial down. Here the scent becomes more like YSL's legendary M7 and less like RT: sweet, deep ambery scent with light spiciness and hints of patchouli. Warm, spicy, lightly-sweet, ambery, rummy, charming. It really is a beautiful scent that manages to melt 2 iconic scents into 1! However, and this is a big "but", I've tried many releases from Chris Collins, and as I said in my review of Citrus Grandis, the releases suffer from a few things: 1. The performance is weak. Skin scent after 1 hour. Lasts ~4-6 hours. 2. While HN is one of the most creative scents from the house, the majority of their scents are still not quite the unique/niche scents for their asking price. This brings us to... 3. The price is too high. $175 for 50ml is more expensive per ml than getting either Red Tobacco, its brother PdM Carlisle, or YSL M7. In fact, I bet you can get a bottle of M7 and another of RT for that price from discounters/eBay. I love this scent but do not see myself as a cautious spender shelling that amount for that volume with that performance. Hopefully, if it hits the discounters. A beautiful, warm, and inviting masculine scent. Suitable more for the cool seasons. "Love"

Discovery sets are $15 for all 7 scents including shipping. The bad thing is the vials are terrible. 3 out of 6 that I have tried are not worthy of a company that sells bottles at almost $5 per ml. This and Danse Sauvage are my faves so far as I have yet to try Oud Galore.My vial did not spray,more of a slow dribble like a newborn. The scent is nothing short of spectacular. Booze,spices,woods with an underlying sweetness that lasts about 6 hours. It screams November- March as the perfect seasons to wear this. Most likely it will lasts longer if your vial actually sprayed. His team should have figured this out before launching or maybe this is the reason the samples are so cheap?

This is so sexy. This is what I imagine the Savoy Ballroom smelled like during the Harlem Renaissance, with Count Basie performing, and all the literary and cultural giants of that time "letting their hair down." It's a boozy, alluring, sensual powdery musk. "Harlem is vicious modernism. Bang clash. Vicious the way it's made. Can you stand such Beauty? So violent and transforming" - Amiri Baraka "Return of the Native"

Sweet, spicy, slightly earthy and musky with a warm, creamy, and very boozy finish😊! When to wear: Nighttime/All Seasons Who Should Wear: Unisex Sillage: Moderate Longevity: 8+ hours for me Top Notes: Rum, Clove, Nutmeg Heart Notes: Jasmine, Orris, Patchouli Base Notes: Sandalwood, Amber, Musk

the top notes are saffron and nutmeg with a boozy quality that morphs into a tobacco vibe with lots of vanilla, sandalwood, patchouli, cedar and musk but it maintains the saffron, nutmeg, booze and tobacco throughout the fragrance

Maybe I'm just weird, but I smell a bit of cola note when I spray it on my skin. So to me it smells like a dapper gentleman sipping the finest rum and coke money can buy, and I absolutely love it.

Smells so good. Great for a night out. Unisex but leans a bit more masculine to me. Not overpowering. The smell sticks around for a good while.

I received this fragrance in a sample set with varying scent profiles. When I tried this on today, it was in warm winter weather. Immediately I can smell something my nose is identifying as rubber, but that note isn't listed. I also immediately smell powdery orris root since it's one of my favorite notes. The dry down of this is very pleasant, like a smokey powder. I find this fragrance to be very interesting because it leans heavily masculine on my skin from the start, but it has a sweet softness to it once that rubbery note fades. Kind of like a new car scent, fresh leather and starched shirts. It smells very adult. Definitely unisex, as it's not the typical "man" fragrance, but I can see why a woman of a certain caliber would enjoy wearing this. It might be nice to layer with something that is pomade sweet rather than candy sweet.

Harlem Nights is a peculiar gourmand blend with spices, rum and earthy orris. First you get a nice glass of the Mai Tai cocktail, and the focus stays on it for a while. Then the nice silky earthiness of iris and saffron will start to distract you from your drink. The combination of the two is mesmerizing–of a cool and restrained beauty. I always think of powdery earthy iris as the silk lining of an expensive coat, usually masculine, and the fragrance completes my perfect picture with a nice drink in some trendy cafe, and a night walk in a cool city.

My nose keeps insisting there's cardamom here but thankfully, no tobacco. Spices drift off after a few minutes and I'm left with sandalwood and vanilla. Not overwhelming nor too masculine, I'm encouraged to further explore this perfumer.

Definitely Unisex. Leans slightly more Masculine. I really like it. I notice the Rum and Iris first. I think this could be a great Fall Date Night scent.

It's a pleasant-enough fragrance, but too weak and prim for the story it's meant to be telling. The volume needs turning up.

darker spice + cardamom. sweet taboo without the sweetness

What comes through on me is primarily the rum, saffron, a little bit of unspecific woodiness, and the vanilla. At first spray it reminded me of some super-popular, powerhouse perfumes, but when it settles down it becomes more unique and is quite nice, and certainly less overwhelming than it is at its top. Definitely creates a scent bubble that's noticeable to others--I had multiple people wonder if I was burning a candle in my office the day I wore it. Feels like more of a nighttime scent, though not wholly inappropriate in daytime, and would probably suit cooler temperatures best. Wear time around 8 hours.

Extremely tamed fragrance (measured from my prior expectations). It's like you're making a wood carving sculpture but end up overpolishing it here and there until it's left with a distorted shape and less trace of the beauty of the raw material(s). In other words, I get spices, but it's not spicy. Also, get the rum but without booziness. Orris, vanilla, and nutmeg combined smell like some sweet, milky, nutty drink to me, which I find cloying, a bit bland, and quite unpleasant. I thought I'd love this :(

This smells like banana laffy taffy to me for the first 10 minutes, then turns into something more like what I'd envision a "Harlem Night" in the Harlem Renaissance to smell like: leather, tobacco, rum, and the slightest bit of smokey wood. Somehow, though, it falls a bit flat. It's pleasant, but I agree with TunyaPe below that somehow this is a "tamed down" fragrance that just doesn't have the sexy and mysterious "oomph" or "je-ne-sais-quois" that I'd want a name like "Harlem Nights" to have.

It's alright, it's not as sexy as I expected it to be. I mostly smell the rum. It might be too medicinal and sharply woody to really be sexy. It doesn't warm up on my skin, either.

gummy bears wrapped individually and sold in payments of 4. 🕴🏻🕴🏻🕴🏻

Perfectly nice boozy saffron confection.

Oh dear. This is a bit of a funny one. I've been across 110th street at night and it don't smell like this, believe you me. I think this is a bit muddled in the pursuit of making something unique, which is an admirable motive for getting in a bit of a mess in the first place. The opening gives me warm to hot spices, I'll go along with nutmeg, clove, perhaps a little cinnamon and even saffron, but the sweetness is an unusual cheap cherryade/maraschino cherries, benzaldehyde and coumarin, which is dying out as soon as it hits your skin because it's offset by hollow, papery woods and faintly floral ionone, driness and that bready, milky, tepid cup of half english breakfast, half chai tea, feel from something like Dries van Noten by Frederic Malle but frankly not as complex or interesting. This effect will forever remind me of the scent that pioneered this vibe which for me was Jeux de Peau by Serge Lutens. To be fair it's not quite as relentlessly, foodie and odd as the Malle, When I sprayed this on a test strip I really liked the late drydown of musks and whatever left in the base of this fragrance, it really does smell beautiful but that happens all the time with fragrances I don't really like and is the classic addage, too little, too late, to the point where that lovely smell on the strip might not going to be detectable on my skin. (it isn't) Not a good start for the brand then for me but I have high hopes about a few of the others.

I'm surprised that this is listed as for men, to a point that I doubt if they labeled the sample wrong. This smells fresh yet very powdery, strong vanilla base, not much of patchouli to me. To my nose this is very very similar to Sylvaine Delacourte's Virgile (80%) + Vangelis (20%).

Smells like juicy fruit gum. Way too feminine for me. On a woman yes it’ll work. As a man it’s a pass

On paper this sample was a lovely musky rum skin scent. On my skin it's baby powder thrown on a brand new plastic kiddie pool. After half an hour I had to scrub it but the cloying plastic is lingering and I want to cut my arm off.

Second on the list: another wonderful fragrance - Harlem Nights, I don't think of Eddie Murphy when wearing this, however a nice fragrance. With these notes, Rum, Saffron, Nutmeg, Cloves, Grapefruit, Lemon, Patchouli, Cedar, Orris Root, Jasmine, Sandalwood, Vanilla, Musk, Vetiver; those that stand out to me the most are Orris Root, Patchouli, Cloves, Jasmine, & Saffron. I get a strong Saffron, yet Jasmine, Orris Root surprise with sweet Patchouli and Cloves sitting in the foreground. This reminds me of Mancera's Aoud Gold, although with a Rose rush, this is more of a Saffron rush with the Jasmine and Orris Root. To me, this one leans more feminine (IMO), perhaps due to the Orris Root and Jasmine notes. I do think a male could rock this as well. As opposed to the other(s), my wife didn't seem to notice this one as she did the others. That is not to suggest a dislike, however, more of an observation. The performance is great as I tested this fragrance this morning after a shower and the cloud bubble seems to be significant.

How odd: I’m getting coffee in this one, instead of in Sweet Taboo (which I'm trying as well). Harlem Nights on me smells like a café latte with a dusting of woody nutmeg. If I squint, I can imagine rum, but mostly this is a really nice milky coffee drink. Dry down adds a high note that I don’t care for, possibly the citrus reacting with the base woods to make it a bit perfume-y/shrill (not screamwood: this is not that horrible aroma chemical that banes me) but that also passes and leaves milky vanilla. At full dry down, there seems to be the same hairspray lacquer tint that Sweet Taboo has, which I don’t love as much. An interesting journey but mostly it's a milky vanilla with other notes dancing through briefly on me. Not gonna buy a full bottle, but might experience the journey until the sample vial is gone.

Upon first spritz I was immediately greeted by a sweet, plum-like rum note. So, I was instantly intrigued. Following, were subtle spices of clove, nutmeg and a very bitter patchouli. As Harlem Nights evolves, a powdery sandalwood emerges giving the fragrance balance and taking the edge off the sweetness. I personally wanted more spices from this, but pleased to at least get hints of saffron after the initial dry down. For those of you familiar with Kilian Cruel Intentions, it is very similar in its final phase. This was my first purchase from Chris Collins. Very suave, great quality and drives curiosity about the rest of the collection.

The opening is initio side effect with a little powdery Iris blended in. Has that same plastic varnishy smell from the rum saffron duo that took years to mellow out of my side effect decant. The mid is much smoother, and the drydown is excellent just like all of Chris Collin’s offerings. Unfortunately the opening ruins the fragrance for me, if you’d like side effect with a touch of Iris you'll love this one.

All in all this works for me but I would not buy it. Nearly all the notes are safe bets for me and the ones I’m most aware of were the rum spices and vanilla. The saffron and sandalwood sort of came through but I detected no citrus whatsoever nor vetiver. This is a very soft scent with nothing remarkable or especially memorable for me which is why my sample will suffice.

This is a pleasant enough scent. It's very dry. I have a deluxe sample, but I wouldn't purchase a full bottle. The notes end up blending together with no real standout note. It ends up being a soft skin scent, which is nice, but I'd like something a bit more interesting for niche.

Harlem Nights would be attractive on a well-dressed man on a night out. It seems quite authoritative, like a college student wouldn't be able to pull this off. I mostly get a smooth but leathery very heavy saffron undergirded with rum and woody notes.

On test strip this smells really good. I got a sample recently with a purchase. I was impressed. Until that is, I sprayed it on my hand to test. Changes entirely, very powdery and somewhat medicinal. This is why we always test on skin before buying.

Classic scent, builds my confidence when I go out because it attracts so much attention.

Medicinal af. If ure indian this smells like an ayurvedic cough syrup. Very very odd.

Saffron and boozy accord. For a saffron I would go for Byredo Saffron

It smells like a Hurricane drink to me

Does anyone get cough syrup from this?